


Earth's Children, Book 5: The Visions of Painted Caves

by zyymurgy



Series: The Visions of Painted Caves [1]
Category: Earth's Children - Jean M. Auel
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cavemen, F/M, Gen, Prehistoric, Suspended in action, Unfinished
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zyymurgy/pseuds/zyymurgy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CURRENTLY ON LONG HIATUS. PLANS TO FINISH IN DISTANT FUTURE.<br/>Semi-Finished plot skeleton for Books One and Two can be found here: http://pastebin.com/pDMxXnyd</p><p>After growing up with the Clan of the Cave Bear, meeting Jondalar, living with the Mamutoi, travelling across Asia and Europe, meeting several different peoples and learning their techniques and ways, Ayla finally arrives at the place her visions have been guiding her: the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, Jondalar's home. However, things don't go according to plan, when Ayla becomes stricken with sudden visions that cause her to collapse without warning. Coupled with the stress of meeting a new people who don't quite accept the Clan as human, and who think her control of animals is strange, frightening magic, Ayla's life with the Zelandonii is a struggle. But is it a test from her totem to show her he is still watching? Or is it the Mother trying to tell her something important? Only Zelandoni can help her make sense of her visions of painted caves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One - The Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FIC IS ON HIATUS.  
> FIND A FULL PLOT SKELETON HERE http://pastebin.com/pDMxXnyd
> 
>  
> 
> This is my first Earth's Children fic, and my first fic at all in a long time, especially on this site.
> 
> As such, I'm a little rusty with canon characters, but I plan on trying to stick relatively close to canon on this fic, even if it is an alternate canon fic!
> 
> I have about 36 pages of outline typed so far, and I plan to fully finish this work if there's enough of an interest in it.
> 
> I've crossposted this work over to the superb board, http://ecfans.com/cgi-bin/forums/ultimatebb.cgi where you can find a great deal of other fanwork relating to Earth's Children, as well as discussion of the series.
> 
> This first part borrows a lot of phrases directly from the book, The Plains of Passage, in order to get the canon established, but also to make the divergence more startling. In the coming chapters, I plan to do essentially completely my own writing.
> 
> Thank you, and I hope you enjoy.

_Ayla looked down from a great height at an unending expanse of water. In the opposite direction, the broad grassy plains stretched out as far as she could see. Nearby was a familiar mountain meadow, with a small cave in a rock wall at the edge. Hazelnut brush grew against the wall, hiding the entrance._

_Someone was pursuing her, and if they caught her, she would be punished, cursed with death. She hurried toward the bushes, knowing to push them aside, but as she touched them, things began becoming dark._

_Ayla turned, and looked over the meadow, where grazing animals often frequented. There were horses grazing there, standing next to a pack of wolves, but neither acknowledged the other. Ayla looked up, and saw the sun and the moon standing together in the sky, but the moon was covering the sun's face and stifling its light, turning day suddenly into night. A flock of birds flew past, but she could see clearly that they were flying upside down. She turned away from the scene, her eyes dazzled and swimming with colorful shapes, and pushed into the dark safety of the cave._

_She was afraid. It was snowing outside the cave, blocking the entrance, but when she pushed the brush aside and stepped out, it was spring. Flowers were blooming and birds singing. New life was everywhere. The lusty cry of a newborn came from the cave._

_She was following someone down the mountain, carrying a prematurely born infant directly next to her breast, with the help of a carrying cloak. The someone limped and walked with a staff and carried something in a cloak on his back that bulged out. It was Creb, and he was protecting her newborn baby girl with his presence. They walked, it seemed forever, but traveled a great distance across mountains and vast plains until they came to a valley with a grassy sheltered field. Horses went there frequently._

_Creb stopped, took off his bulging cloak and laid it on the ground. She thought she saw the white of bone inside, but a young brown horse stepped away from the cloak, and ran to a dun yellow mare. She whistled to the horse, but she galloped away with a pale stallion._

_She watched Whinney run a distance away, before stopping. The pale stallion reared up, then mounted her, and entered her, and she heard both horses screaming their pleasure as they coupled. The sky above them suddenly turned dark, and Ayla saw the moon in front of the sun - then both faded and she saw a simple black circle in charcoal, made on a scrap of ivory. "The mother chooses," she heard a faint voice echo, but she could not tell who had spoken._

_Creb turned and beckoned to her, drawing her attention away from the sky, but she couldn't quite understand his sign. It was an everyday language she didn't know. He made a new signal. "Come, we can be there before dark."_

_She was in a long tunnel deep in a cave. A series of torches in the wall beckoned her forward. Ahead a light flickered. It was an opening to outside. She was walking up a steep path along a wall of creamy white rock, following a man taking longer, eager strides. She knew the place, and hurried to catch up._

_"Wait! Wait for me. I'm coming," she called out._

 

  
"Ayla! Ayla!" Jondalar was shaking her, gently, and she awakened, moaning softly. "Were you having another bad dream?" His voice was tinged with fear, and as she came around, Ayla realized that he thought she'd had another frightening premonition.

"A strange dream, but not a bad one, not like before. It's alright, go back to sleep," she said, stifling a yawn. She began to sit up, but felt a wave of nausea and lay back down, closing her eyes. Maybe if she tried lying still she'd feel better.

  
~*~

  
Jondalar flapped the leather ground cloth at the pale stallion, and Wolf yipped and harried him, while Ayla slipped the bright red halter over Whinney's head. She carried only a small pack on her back, and was more easily able to quickly leap onto the mare's back. Racer carried the rest of her possessions, tied securely to a tree a distance away.

Ayla urged her mare to a gallop, guiding her along the edge of a long field. The stallion chased them, but he slowed as they gained distance from the rest of the mares. Finally he pulled to a halt, reared, and neighed, kicking out with his front hooves, calling to Whinney. Ayla felt the horse beneath her slow her gait in hesitance, but at Ayla's urging she put on a new burst of speed, her lifelong training outweighing her herding instincts. Behind them, the stallion turned away and raced back to his herd, screaming a challenge at the other stallions who dared encroach on his territory.

Horse and rider continued away from the herd, but slowed from the fast gallop to an easy canter, then a walk. When she heard hoof-beats behind, she stopped and waited for Jondalar on Racer, with Wolf at their heels.

"If we hurry, we can be there before dark," Jondalar said, slightly out of breath but looking quite pleased, his long hair in disarray, escaping its leather thong.

Ayla smiled at him, but his words chilled her for some reason, and she had a sense that she'd heard them before, and that she'd walked this path a hundred times. She guided Whinney to fall into step beside and a bit ahead of Racer, as she was used to, and rode quietly beside the man she loved.

Lost in thought, Ayla considered the implications of what had just transpired. She and Jondalar had shared Pleasures, she didn't have her tea, and now she was feeling a bit sick in the mornings. She hadn't felt sick in the mornings on their trip though they'd been sharing Pleasures, and she'd been drinking her tea the whole time. But this one missed morning's drink, and suddenly... She was sure of it now. Pleasures started life, and she was pregnant. But if that was so...

"I think Whinney will be pregnant now," she announced, a little tentatively but with feeling, and Jondalar looked at her with a bit of surprise. "Just like I will. We will both have our second children at the same time."

"You're sure she'll be pregnant?" he asked, although he was coming around to accept Ayla's insistent, convincing statements that Pleasures made children.

"She shared Pleasures with that stallion, I'm sure of it." And horses have no special tea, she thought but did not say, still reluctant to tell her man she had been preventing his seed from mixing with hers. "We'll have to keep an eye on her, but I have a strong feeling we will both be with child this summer."

"Imagine that... You two will have a lot of people to share that time with. If only we could have taken that pale horse with us," Jondalar said wistfully, thinking of riding the large, light-colored beast. "It's a shame that you must raise a horse from a baby. But that's how the magic works, isn't it?"

"It's no more magic than an adopted baby loving his new mother," Ayla replied dismissively, though she wore a small smile on her face. "But maybe that is magic in itself, too. Perhaps love is the magic that makes man want to cooperate with each other, and animals with man. I know I love Whinney."

Jondalar smiled, and reached down to rub his mount's neck, keeping his seat expertly. "And I love this big brute," he said fondly. Then his eyes were drawn past his mount's head, and he sat up straight, looking hard.

"Look, Ayla!" he said, flinging his hand forth to point, and Ayla followed his gaze, focusing. "See that huge rock over there? The pale white one? Just beyond the turn in the river? That's where I made my first kill!" He turned to grin at Ayla, but his smile faded seeing the expression on her face.

Ayla was sitting stiffly on her horse, with a rigid expression on her face, and a faraway look in her eye. She had broken out entirely in gooseflesh, and had sat up so straight that Whinney interpreted as a signal to stop, and she was turning her head to look up at her rider, snorting softly.

The woman wasn't seeing her man, or her mount, or the scenery in front of her. Instead, she was in a different place, a different time. She was amidst trees, she was running hard, her status depending on her skill. She thrusted a spear. A deer stumbled and died. She was running hard across a meadow. She threw a spear hard and one among several aurochs stumbled as they fled. She was chasing horses into a surround, closing the gate, and throwing a spear, making her first kill. A whirlwind of visions assaulted her at once, seeing this rich place full of easy game, used at times as a young hunter's proving ground, often enough for these memories to have been made.

"Ayla? Ayla! Ayla, what's wrong?" Jondalar had jumped off his horse and grabbed at her leg, and only at his touch did she suddenly move again, shaking herself, closing her eyes. He reached up for her hand, and found her skin was cold. "Ayla?" he asked again, with peaking concern.

The woman shook her head, cleared her throat, and said, "I'm fine. Sorry, I'm okay. I just saw... saw something. I remembered... It's not important. Not like before." She reopened her eyes, looked down at Jondalar and saw his blue eyes full of love, and tried to banish the strange scenes from her mind. They had just been visions of hunting, no premonitions, no words from Creb.

"It's alright. I don't know why, but when you mentioned hunting here, it reminded me of something," she tried to explain, and Jondalar seemed satisfied. He shifted Racer's lead rope to his other hand after stepping away from Ayla and her mount, then stepped back up onto his horse's back and resettled himself.

"Alright. Let's go on, anyways. I'm starting to spot landmarks. I think down over there is where we held a Summer Meeting, once," he said, urging Racer to walk on again.

They continued along, but Jondalar tried to keep a closer eye on the woman he planned to mate. If she was pregnant with his child, the combination of his essence and hers, as Ayla insisted, then his duty as man of the child's hearth was to make sure it was born healthy and stayed healthy. And if Ayla's horse was pregnant as well, wasn't he responsible for that "child" as well? He had a brief thought of himself mated to Whinney, and smiled. He was more like the man of her hearth, anyways, he reasoned.

As they neared the large open space, Jondalar relived his youthful memories, smiling wide. "Yeah, this is the spot! This is where we were all camped, there were hearths everywhere, and I remember bringing my first kill back here. Oh, how I strutted, trying to act so old, but so afraid that no young woman would invite me to her First Rites. I guess I didn't have to worry. I was invited to three and that scared me even more!"

Ayla dimly heard him, but only halfway. As he talked about the camp she could see it, not in her minds' eye but there, right there - people tending fires, a woman and her child sitting together as she showed her progeny how to clean roots for food, someone working flint, a group of young girls talking. She could hear their conversation, smell the scent of roasting aurochs. She was sitting stiff again, and she was feeling so cold she was shivering... She wrenched her eyes away from the scene in front of her, and turned to look at Jondalar, and looking at him made her flush, warming slightly. He was looking at her with concern again, but she tried to smile. When she looked back at the site, there was nothing there. But she could see some people, across the meadow!

"Jondalar! There are some people over there, staring at us," Ayla said, and Jondalar followed her gaze, squinting, before grinning.

"That's the Fourteenth Cave!" he cried, and waved, urging Racer ahead, but after a brief moment his enthusiasm faltered and he drew Racer up again. "They're not waving... they're going back inside the cave!"

"It must be the horses again," Ayla sighed, dismayed, and slowly climbed down from the back of her mount.

Jondalar did the same, saying, "It's alright. Everyone is nervous at first, but everyone grows to love the horses. If we walk in, it should be better." Then he paused, and looked at Ayla more closely. "Are you alright? You look so pale. Is it... are you being reminded of more things?"

"That must be it," Ayla replied, shaking her head slowly and rubbing her arms. Though the sun was out and the day was rather fair, she was freezing. "Sorry to worry you, Jondalar. We're so close, I don't mean to slow us down."

"I've been gone five years. Another day won't make any difference," he said, taking her into his arms and kissing her hair. "You should put on an extra layer of clothing, you're freezing cold."

After helping her into her parka, the entourage resumed their trek, and Ayla tried to walk at a speed easy enough that the horses could browse along the way. Wolf obviously wanted to run off and explore, but Ayla kept him close at her heel, not wanting him to surprise any hunters in the brush. As they drew nearer to their destination, the blonde woman continued to feel strange sensations and chills passing through her. No further visions accosted her, but she had the same general feeling as before, a sense of unreality and unease. She looked up into the sky and expected to see the sun and the moon standing together, but the sky was clear and day was apparent.

Suddenly, Jondalar was shouting, and it startled Ayla a bit, but she looked around - then saw it.

"There it is Ayla! The Ninth Cave! We're home! Ayla, look-- Ayla!!"

Jondalar hadn't been looking, busy looking on and waving to the assembled group watching them from a distance. But when he turned around, he saw Ayla sagging against her horse, slipping limply to the ground, and he rushed to her side, wrapping his arms around her. Whinney danced away from her, snorting, her ears pricked high, and Racer seemed just as uneasy. Wolf was there too, pushing his nose into her face, licking her, and Jondalar pushed him aside. He reached up to feel her skin, and found she was cold as death.

It was exactly as the time she made the root drink and went with Mamut, and that time she had been so close to the spirit realm, only his love brought her back. But there were no chanters here, no one to help. Would his love be enough?

"Ayla!!" he cried in agony, fully realizing the situation, and heard a faint cry answering from behind him.

"Jondalar! Jondalar's home! He- Jondalar? Jonde??" A young woman was approaching, but when she took in the scene she stopped short. Jondalar looked up, and immediately recognized the young woman, though she had grown significantly since he last saw her.

"Folara!" he cried, grief and concern in his voice. "Go get Zelandoni!" The girl turned and was off like a shot - she had seen the woman's pallor and heard her brother's pain, and knew that the strange woman was in bad danger.

As Folara raced back to the Ninth Cave, Wolf sat back, tipped his snout to the sky, and voiced a beautiful ringing howl, magnificent in its tone and heart-rending in its inexplicably communicated sorrow. Jondalar held his beloved close, speaking to her in feverish tones: "Ayla, my Ayla, oh please, come back. Ayla, oh please, don't get lost in the spirit realm!"


	2. Chapter Two: Smiles and Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ayla has been stricken with strange visions, and Zelandoni is convinced she travels in the spirit realm. Jondalar feels such deep fear that he is almost incoherent, and he knows only Zelandoni can help the woman he loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off I want to say I can't believe how positive the response is so far! Thank you all so much for your kind words of encouragement, it makes me so happy to know I've started something good that people are interested in.
> 
> I'm going to try and not leave huge pauses in between chapters, so I think a day or two to make a chapter is a reasonable time frame. However if I start slipping, feel free to complain at me to write the next chapter!

Zelandoni was aware of the commotion from the get-go; sitting quietly at the back of the Ninth Cave abri, she was easily aware of the goings on around her, and when word began to spread that a signal fire had been lit over at the Fourteenth Cave, the First Among Those Who Serve The Mother knew about it. Privately, seeming from all outward appearances to be lost in the mindstate she cultivated when she wished to flit between the Spirit World and reality, she wondered what the problem was. It was a huge, bright fire, the rumor was, meaning something serious was happening, and maybe there should be a meeting. Zelandoni supposed a runner was being sent their way.

However, when the first person cried out that someone was approaching, their tone was one of fear, and that got everyone's attention, not just the First's. That fearful shout summoned most of the nearby people of the Ninth Cave from their various tasks to the sunlit veranda of the abri that looked down over the River and the paths their Cave used to go to and from their neighboring sites. Zelandoni, however, was not one to jump up and run off to see what was going on. Carefully and with practiced grace, Zelandoni adjusted herself on the large slab of rock she used as her seat, invisible to all for the commotion on the paths. She wondered what it could be, but if it was danger, Zelandoni was better off sitting in the back of the abri anyways; a woman of her enormous and prodigious size wasn't well suited to casting a spear or dodging away from an angry cave lion.

The spiritual leader of the entire region watched as more people ran to gather at the opening, and Marthona's beautiful daughter, for whom Zelandoni had a special fondness, was one of the people to arrive later. Zelandoni watched as she approached the group quickly, and found a spot to look out from, but Zelandoni was surprised when she cried out and began running down the path herself.

Thinly, she heard a man shout, and then she could have sworn she heard Folara crying Jondalar's name. "Jondalar! Jondalar's home! He--"

And then she stopped, and Zelandoni came fully aware as she heard a wolf howling from quite nearby. Opening her eyes completely and lifting her head, she scanned the assembled group at the front of the abri. They were turning to talk to each other, and there was wonder in their expressions, but the tone was hushed and fearful. Zelandoni finally stood up, truly beginning to grasp that something extremely out of the ordinary was out there.

And then sweet young Folara was tearing back into the cave, pushing someone in her haste, and Zelandoni strode over to meet her in her quickest walking gait. Folara ran up to her and drew in a great breath, and the large woman took her by the arms and looked intensely into her face for a moment. She read all she needed to know there, and nodded curtly to her. "Summon my acolyte," she said, "but don't waste time waiting for him and start a fire for me in my dwelling."

The brunette girl nodded, and rushed off once again, dashing through the abri and darting around hearths and homes. She was out of sight quickly, and Zelandoni wasted no time hurrying to the abri's opening and then down the path.

Zelandoni was an enormously fat woman and she felt the burden of her weight, but she had long since grown accustomed to the addition and had cultivated a smooth walking gait that covered as much ground as someone jogging. When she wanted to she could really cover ground, and it was now that she had such a desire. She didn't need to brush past the crowd that had assembled, for they naturally parted for her, and she hurried down the slope to meet the man she had once loved, and find the reason for all the distress.

She thought she saw it right away; Jondalar was on the ground next to two horses. Perhaps he had been kicked - but no, that made no sense. The horses were obviously agitated, but they seemed to be staying quite near Jondalar. As Zelandoni drew nearer she almost stumbled and stopped walking - there was an enormous wolf standing right there!

Zelandoni's head whirled for a moment the way it did when the spirit world was calling her, but she focused and kept walking, trying to dispel that sense of unreality. She had often seen grazer and predator stand side by side that way, ignoring each other, but only in the spirit world, when her own elan left her body and raced through unseen realms. Perhaps she was only imagining the animals, she thought briefly, but then Jondalar moved, and his hand reached out for the wolf and settled on its head. No, then, the animals were real.

And then she noticed the reason for his great distress; he had been hunched over the body of a woman, and behind the horses, the man and the wolf she had been all but invisible for how unremarkable she was. Zelandoni took in the sight quickly, with the trained eye of a healer, and knew immediately something was very wrong.

Jondalar hadn't even noticed her approach, but the wolf had, and he stood up on all fours and uttered a shrill yipping noise, his luminous eyes focused firmly on Zelandoni's face. The First had the impression that a bright young man, a talented acolyte destined to serve the Mother, was staring into her face; she had to shake her head to rid herself of such a thought - this was only an animal!

The animal's sound accomplished its purpose though, as Jondalar's head jerked up. He had been muttering to the woman in his arms, and when he looked around at Zelandoni she saw that he had tears in his eyes, and she was startled. The face was so familiar, but it wore new lines of pain, and the woman who had once called herself Zolena found herself still so drawn to his vividly blue eyes - but the pain in them refocused her quickly, and she stepped a little nearer to the couple on the ground.

"Zelandoni," Jondalar moaned, his voice trembling, "help her." He sounded so helpless, so lost, so unlike the man who had left this cave so many years ago that Zelandoni was again surprised, but she was able to put it aside more quickly, and come forward to examine the woman. For the time being, she decided to forget about the strange animals; there would be time for questions later.

The woman was indeed in trouble, Zelandoni saw, her lips pressing together into a grim frown. She was as pale as a corpse and just as cold, though she was wearing a thick parka in sunny, pleasant weather. She worried for a second that Jondalar was so near her, knowing how terrible infectious disease could be for a people, but then Zelandoni saw the woman stir, her eyelids fluttering, and heard the low, guttural series of noises she made. Then Zelandoni recognized it for what it was, but hardly believed it; somehow this woman's elan was walking the spirit world, and her body was calling out for it.

"Jondalar," Zelandoni said, trying to keep her tone gentle and reassuring, as she looked up at the man. "Can you carry her? She must be brought up to the Cave and into my dwelling. We must keep her body safe and warm for her elan to return to, and we must hurry."

Jondalar nodded, swallowing hard, and collected the woman securely into his arms. Her head lolled back when he lifted her, but the tall man gently supported it, and began to carry her to the cave. Zelandoni turned and hurried back up the slope at her quickest pace, but Jondalar's long strides outdistanced her, and she watched him part the crowd easily.

The wolf followed at his heel without question, but the two horses seemed afraid of the assembled people and hung back. Zelandoni hesitated, then paused to address the assembled crowd as Jondalar went to the familiar place where the woman who was once Zolena lived.

"The animals that are with them are not simple animals," she warned, a little out of breath but able to deliver a good, stern tone to the assembled people. "There is something special about them. They might be animals directed by Spirit of Horse and Spirit of Wolf, the Mother's original creatures. No harm must befall them either way, for they stand quietly beside humans and wolves and do not fear, as it is in the World of Spirits."

She gave the assemblage a stern stare, her eyes travelling from one face to the next and giving them all the impression she had looked into their very souls, and then she hurried off to her dwelling. Most members of the crowd stared after her, then looked down at the horses who were uneasily milling about at the clearing down below the abri. More than one pair eyes looked at the two beasts with new wonder; if Zelandoni said something was like the way it was in the spirit realm, most people had no choice but to believe her, and most of the people there looked on at the horses with a little fear.

Whinney, for her part, felt just as much fear, her dark eyes rolling as she watched the woman who had mothered her be carried away by the man who had come later, who rode her son just as her mother rode her. Strange people had seldom given the horse trouble, but she still feared for the safety of her living son and the unborn child she sensed starting within herself, and uneasy, she stayed away, not willing to follow the man into unfamiliar territory the way she was willing to follow Ayla's gentle urging.

Inside the abri, Jondalar had taken Ayla to a dwelling he was more than familiar with. It had been Zelandoni's home even as she was Zolena, though the only thing really familiar about it was its location, it seemed to the man. The dwelling he remembered had been a small family unit that Zolena had inherited from her mother, and when she had passed away Zolena was an adult, and chose to live in the dwelling alone. Now, it was much enlarged.

The old walls must have fallen down or been knocked down; now the walls encompassed a much greater space. The first knee-high stretch of large blocks of limestone, collected and sorted and then used according to size, seemed quite old, perhaps from the original construction, but there were some new pieces as well. Some of the pieces had been shaped roughly with a hammerstone, but most of the large blocks were used as they were found, though the rest of the stones that made up the 5-foot height of the stone wall were smaller and more accurately shaped and placed. It looked like a sturdy, well-made dwelling, and Jondalar knew that the woman he had once longed to mate was held in high esteem. She had been made First before he had left, and she had obviously proven herself, if she was gifted such a magnificent personal dwelling. Its walls were thick, and as watertight as they were attractively placed.

Jondalar hurried to the entrance and used his shoulder to brush aside the dwelling's door, a stiffer panel of rawhide that could be tied to the posts that supported it to hold it closed, and stepped inside the large dwelling. The stone walls were sturdy, but they were outer walls, and the dwelling had an inner wall composed of tall frames with large rawhide panels attached to them. These panels extended high over the stone walls, reaching about 8 or 9 feet with the pointed ends of the frames sunk deeply, securely into the ground. They were painted with exquisite, intricate designs on the inside, as well as on the parts that would show outside peeking over the stone walls. The panels were also used to divide the large, roughly square shelter into rooms, and the room Jondalar entered into was an impressive one.

Above his head, strung between wall-panels and tied to the frames as high up and Zelandoni could reach, were thick lines of cord, from which several kinds of plant-products were hanging, being dried. Also hanging from some wall panels were various implements: carved staffs of wood, or bone, or antler; empty waterbags waiting to be filled hanging above the large water-tight basket in which Zelandoni kept the full bags; there were wooden shelves fastened to these frames as well, upon which cups and serving dishes were kept. Zelandoni's dwelling seemed to be stuffed full of esoteric-looking objects and charms, hanging from every available frame-post.

The dirt floor of the dwelling was paved with pieces of flat, smooth limestone, and Jondalar stepped across the tiles to a large slab of limestone that the dwelling had been built around, just as the previous one that stood on this spot had. The slab was quite large, and had dropped from the roof of the abri when the Ancestors were first occupying the Cave, or so it was said. Over generations of use, it had been modified slightly, shaped with hammerstones and made victim to attempts at using sand to rub it smoother and flatter, and it was now almost perfectly smooth. It had always been used as a large table, good for having a meal with family and friends upon, but Zelandoni used it differently than her mother had. She kept it covered with a leather pad sewn into a shape and stuffed with hay, and then thick sleeping furs on top of that. It made an exquisite examination table, large enough for a tall man like Jondalar to lie down upon comfortably, and it was on this table that Jondalar laid Ayla.

Jondalar hadn't noticed the other two people in the dwelling, so intense was his focus on his lover, but when Folara cleared her throat nervously, the tall man looked up at her. His sister was sitting next to a man he remembered vaguely from summer meetings and hunting parties. He was younger than himself, but Jondalar faintly remembered the young man. Jonokol had only recently become a man when Jondalar left, and though he had gone on a few hunts with the others, he didn't have the best throwing arm, and always seemed to look forward more to the end when he could draw a figure of the animal in the dirt where the animal was killed, when they offered thanks to the Mother and the Spirit Animals. Jondalar was surprised to see him here, but remembered that he had been training for the Zelandonia since he was a boy at Elder Hearth. It was only fitting that he be made acolyte to the First Among Those Who Serve.

Jondalar's young sister was standing up from the stuffed leather cushion she'd been sitting on, on the floor beside the hearth where she had been working with Jonokol to get a fire started. They hadn't quite managed it yet, and Jonokol was still sitting, trying to work up enough friction between stick and fire-platform to make an ember grow. As her big brother laid his lover down on the large stone table, Folara drew near, holding a waterbag out to him. Wordlessly, but with a nod of thanks, Jondalar took it from her outstretched hands and unstoppered it, and brought its spinal-bone spout up to his lips and drank deeply. Fear and panic made him thirsty.

When he was done, he handed the bag back to her, and then slowly lowered himself down onto a pile of furs stuffed under a leather cover, which functioned as a taller seat than just a leather pad, and looked down at Ayla's cold, pale face.

She was stiff, rigid, her teeth clamped together, and she was shivering. Folara followed her brother's gaze, then quickly went into the other room and gathered Zelandoni's furs off her bed, and brought them out to cover the cold woman with.

Jondalar was in a state of shellshock, hardly thinking, and he sat and watched Folara cover his woman with furs. Then he turned and glimpsed Jonokol, exerting himself over the hearth with a frustrated expression, and stood up quickly - his trying to start a fire "the hard way" reminded him that he had wanted to show his people the firestone. "Our packs!" he said, suddenly and hoarsely, and then turned and dashed out of the dwelling. Folara watched him go with a scared, uncertain expression, then turned to Jonokol, who hadn't looked up. The young woman returned to the hearth, and kneeling down, reached to take the fire-stick and take her turn at trying to start an ember.

The tall man almost ran smack into Zelandoni as she was trying to come into the dwelling, and he trying to exit, and he apologized hastily as he stumbled and dodged around her, but he was running off again in a second. Zelandoni frowned as she watched him go, but quickly turned back to her dwelling and entered. She knew Jondalar, or at least she hoped she still did, and usually when he was running around with a panicked look in his eye, it was for a good reason.

Zelandoni stepped into her dwelling and around the limestone slab with the practiced ease of years, used to having patients in her home. She saw that familiar furs had been placed over the strange woman, and she silently approved. Seeing her acolyte and her young friend working at the hearth, the donier quickly set about gathering her implements from around the place - water-tight baskets for cooking medicines, her satchel which contained the bulk of her arranged and sorted medicines in their distinctly embroidered and colorfully dyed packets, cups for drinking tea, and a long-handled ladle made of a whole aurochs horn.

She set these things up next to the hearth where she had another large, limestone block seat - this one which had to be brought in by a team of strong men carefully flipping it over and over and then finally dragging it into place - which she used as a seat when cooking at the fire or working at the large table, its roughly oval shape perfect for sitting on in any position. Its round edge meant that she could just shift her weight to turn around on the seat, rather than having to stand up and turn herself around, so that she could go from looking down at her patient to fixing an infusion or decoction with ease. Add to that the fact that her wide bottom only took up half of the slab at any one time, and she could use the rest of the seat as a bench for setting her implements upon.

Sitting on this seat allowed her to look down at her patient on the stone table without having to bend over too far too, and Zelandoni examined the woman's face closely from this vantage point, looking down at her so that the woman's face appeared upside down to her. There was a distinctly foreign cast to her features, though she was blonde and beautiful; her high cheekbones and widely spaced eyes, her fine pointed chin and pretty little nose, all were desirable attractive features, but the image was spoiled by how pale and drawn she was. Zeladoni recognized well the pallor, the rictus, having seen them often enough in the other members of the zelandonia.

But how did this woman come to travel in the spirit realm? For most people, it was very difficult and dangerous, and most had to take special drinks or medicines to go there. Zelandoni had heard of precious few who were able to visit the spirit world at will, and she had heard only stories and legends of people who had been able to match her own prowess and ability to travel much more freely between the two realms. And yet, putting the pieces together from Jondalar's panic, this woman had suddenly slipped into the spirit realm. She would have to ask if she'd eaten any strange mushrooms or unfamiliar food, but Jondalar was native to this area, and would have known to stop her.

Gently, the healer reached to feel the woman's face, noting the cool clamminess of her skin, and then she reached to pull her eyelid up with the gentle practiced touch of a skilled doctor. She could see that this woman's eyes were unseeing, as though she were sleeping, but she did not seem to have the signs of the poisoning that induced trances.

Zelandoni nevertheless thought of remedies for a bad poisoning from mystical herbs - for she knew it to be poison, just as surely as she knew the other deadly poisons that could kill, and she wanted to be prepared in case she was wrong. There were certain herbs that could be brewed that could neutralize such toxins, but they wouldn't bring someone's elan back from the spirit world to their body. All they would do would be to ease the after-effects and intestinal distress that followed eating such a dose of herbs. She kept these mixtures in mind, but instead rummaged through her satchel to withdraw a few different packets of herbs.

Putting together the ingredients for a calming, relaxing tea, she had Jondalar more in mind than the strange woman he'd brought. For people lost in the spirit realm, or called there by the Mother, there was precious little you could do except keep them warm, set up a healing chant, and call their name. Jondalar, however, would need to relax, as he would be more useful to her with a more level head. She looked up from her leather bag, and was pleased to see the two young people finally had a fire going in the hearth, and were moving cooking stones nearer to it. "Jonokol," the donier said softly, and the acolyte looked around.

"Yes, Zelandoni."

"I need you to go and fetch some of our rattles, the ones made of shells. Those are best for a healing chant. I also need to you go let Joharran know that Jondalar is indeed home, but that his companion needs the help of the zelandonia, and that he should set up the signal fire to call for the zelandonia of nearby caves. Then we'll need someone to watch for them and greet them, but not you. I need you," the donier explained, and her calm, rational, level and controlled voice, so self-assured and confident, served to soothe her acolyte's fraying nerves.

The young, dark-haired man nodded, standing up and stepping around Folara to gain entrance to one of the other rooms. The main room of the dwelling took up over half the available floorspace, but two smaller rooms were marked in the other half, which were Zelandoni's and Jonokol's respective sleeping rooms, as well as the places where they kept their more important artefacts, both spiritual and personal.

Jonokol's room was simple and rather typical of his people: a raised platform at one end was covered with soft furs, and it was a useful bed as well as a bench; a wooden frame that was made of sturdy posts firmly lashed together, that had several ladder-like rungs, over which well-decorated articles of clothing were draped; there were also several baskets of varying sizes, some stacked up and some standing open on the floor, most of which containing the implements Jonokol considered his, that he used in his daily tasks, including more than a few stone, bone and antler knives, adzes, burins, scrapers, awls, hole punches, carving implements and more.

Jonokol was an artist, and an acolyte of the zelandonia however, and as such his room was less typical of a young man's. Instead of furs and hides in varying states of progress, or carved spears, or sewing projects, he instead had baskets and baskets of scrap leather that he had been practicing his artwork on. There were also baskets full of large pieces of birch-bark bearing shapes and figures of animals drawn in charcoal or red ochre paint; slabs of ivory and bone in varying states of progression in being carved into figurines, plaques and statuettes of both Doni and her Spirit Animals; large pieces of leather bearing practice drawings and paintings that could be washed off, the leather reworked, and painted again; and many other tools and art objects that he had either made or traded for.

In one of the baskets nearer his sleeping platform, Jonokol stored the more important objects, and he slowly, carefully removed the red-dyed lid of the well-woven basket. Here was a donii his mother had given to him when he left for the Ninth Cave; there was a slab of ivory that had been etched by his mentor, the Zelandoni of the Second Cave, a beautifully worked picture of a pregnant aurochs. Next to these precious sacred mementos, he stored a small wooden staff he had carved on Zelandoni's orders, that resembled the head of an elk or a horse. It had been pierced through the nose, and a thong threaded through it, and a bundle of white feathers hung from it. Looped around it was a bracelet of pierced mussel shells.

It was made from a very long, rather thick leather thong, and the holes through the shells were quite large to accommodate this, but the shells were large and though the rattle resembled a bracelet, it was too large to be worn. The length of it had been threaded with shells, then the bracelet had been coiled up into a circular shape, three full loops being made. At certain intervals around it, it had been loosely tied with shorter thongs. The whole thing made a pleasant rattling noise when shaken, and Jonokol withdrew both the staff and the rattle from the basket, setting them gently on his bed and carefully replacing the lid of the basket, before taking up his sacred tools again and bringing them out to Zelandoni.

It was an important test for an acolyte to take charge of a healer's sacred tools, and Jonokol was doing well, the large woman noted as her young apprentice re-entered the main room. She took these tools, thanked him, then sent him off to find Joharran, and then with one hand began shaking the rattle, in an accented but steady rhythm. In her other hand she took the pierced staff, and held it over the woman whose elan had fled her body, holding it at just the right angle so that the feathers dangled just above her face and moved with her breath. As she established a rhythm, she looked to Folara, who nodded, and then Zelandoni began chanting melodically in her rich, soprano voice. After a few moments, Folara joined in, her own voice lacking the timbre and strength of Zelandoni's, but sweet and pleasant just the same.

The chant they sang was one that was passed down through the zelandonia for ages, that was also well known to the people; it was a circular rhythm that could be repeated on loop for as long as neccessary. The words could be replaced with anything, but the sound and cadence of the song was the familiar and neccessary element. It was a familiar sound that was able to focus a sick person's mind, or help a traveller return from the spirit world.

  
~*~*~

  
Jondalar had rushed out of Zelandoni's dwelling with panicked abandon, and Wolf had been torn between following him or not, but the creature had elected to stay behind, outside the dwelling, sniffing around it, often poking his head in through the flap. However harmless he seemed, though, the members of the Ninth Cave were frightened. Word had spread from Zelandoni that the animals were Spirit Animals, and not to be bothered or harmed, but she had offered no reassurances that the wolf wouldn't harm anyone. The scent of fear was palpable in the air for the wolf, and he was feeling his own distress quite acutely. As Jondalar ran off, Wolf watched him, then sat down. Behind him, inside the dwelling, he heard a high-pitched noise start, and in response and tipped his head back, voicing another long, sonorous howl, to comfort himself as much as to voice his own particular kind of canine grief.

The tall man had left him, and hurried down the path to where he'd left the horses, having realized he ran off leaving them with all of their possessions tied to their backs. But when he neared the clearing below the abri, he relaxed a little, seeing that the two horses had stayed nearby, standing near the trees and grazing. Both creatures looked up as soon as Jondalar appeared, and he hurried over to them, calling out to Racer, who voiced a loud, anxious whinny.

"It's alright," Jondalar said soothingly, though he felt that wasn't quite the case. He stroked the animal's neck as he came near, spent a few moments talking quietly to his mount which served to calm the beast, and then set to untying his bundles and unburdening the horse. It was a practiced task that he was able to be done with much more quickly than when they had first set out a year ago, but without Ayla to help unpack Whinney, it took twice as long, and the dun horse was never as calm or patient with him as she was with Ayla. Eventually he had all of their possessions off the horses' backs and onto the ground, and he was removing their riding blankets when Joharran came striding up to him.

"Jondalar!" the brown-haired man exclaimed as he came closer, hurrying down the path from the abri, but he stopped before getting too close to the two horses, who seemed to be staring right at him, with their ears forward and their horsey faces somehow managing to look concerned.

Jondalar had noticed him coming down and had turned away from the horses, and the beasts stood quite still, watching the new stranger. Jondalar could tell they were quite agitated without Ayla's unique presence around to calm and comfort them. Not for the first time he found himself wishing he could speak the special language she had for the horses, the special blend of Clan language, animal noises and strange words that always seemed to soothe them.

As his older brother came striding toward him, Jondalar stepped forward with his hands held out to receive the formal Zelandonii greeting, and Joharran had little choice but to step closer to meet him, though he eyed the horses with apprehension and fear. He, too, had heard the rumor that they were Spirit Horses.

"Welcome home, Jondalar!" the Leader of the Ninth Cave said, a little too heartily, trying to mask his fear, and Jondalar frowned, seeing through it with the practiced ease of a lifetime despite his long absence. "And... er, welcome, to your... Horse companions," Joharran fumbled a bit, trying to ease the situation despite his apprehension. "I'd also offer welcome to the, erm, extremely large wolf that you traveled here with, but, he, uh, doesn't seem to be with you."

"Thank you, Joharran," the blonde man said a bit hoarsely, taking his brother's hands for a moment before dropping them and stepping back, turning and reaching up to pet Racer's neck. "And I thank you for welcoming our animal friends. Wolf is back with Ayla, at Zelandoni's dwelling. It's changed a lot since I've been gone," he remarked.

"Much has. It's been five years," Joharran agreed, and then hesitated. "Jondalar, are your companions going to be in need of anything... special? Are they... normal?" he asked, trying not to be blunt about the issue, but failing and flushing a bit.

Jondalar offered him the first smile he'd given, small though it was. "Yes, our horses are normal. They are made of flesh as a normal horse and can be hurt like a normal horse. However, unlike a normal horse, these beasts have been raised around people since they were small. Whinney is Racer's mother," he said, gesturing first to the dun mare and then the darker stallion. "I watched Whinney give birth to him right in front of my eyes, and I guess in my own way I helped raise him. I certainly helped train him to carry things and people on his back, though it took years and much practice. Wolf was the same way."

His explanation seemed to satisfy the uneasy leader, but there was still doubt in his eye, and Jondalar continued, "Wolf would never harm anyone unless they were trying to hurt him or Ayla, and the horses are gentle unless they're afraid. But they are living animals and need space to live, sleep, and eat. The horses will need to graze in a meadow around here, but Ayla is always worried that someone will try and hurt our horses. Do you see these bright red ropes, tied to their heads?" he asked, and continued when Joharran nodded, "These are so that they stand out and can be identified as our special horses who are our friends. They must not be harmed in any way. Do you understand?"

"Perhaps you should make one of those for the wolf," Joharran joked uneasily, but he smiled more widely when he saw Jondalar's own smile grow. "I understand, my brother. I welcome you and your horses and your wolf home to the Ninth Cave, and I promise to get the word out that the animals must be kept safe. I suppose we will have to have a celebration, and I'll announce it there."

"Celebration...? Oh, Joharran, no, not now," Jondalar said, and his face began to crumple back into an expression of twisted agony. "Ayla, my Ayla, she's..."

"Is it as bad as they say?" the leader asked, and Jondalar simply nodded, closing his eyes. "Oh Doni. I had hoped it was just exaggeration by retelling. Jondalar, I'm sorry. Under these circumstances, then, I cannot hold a welcoming feast. But I must hold a meeting to discuss the animals."

"Yes, please," Jondalar said, then sighed and seemed to gather himself back together, opening his eyes and looking at his brother. "I will need help taking our packs up to Marthona's dwelling, and I will have to show the horses where it is safe to graze. I'm thinking about putting them in the field up near Wood River, but I'm worried there might be hunters, and they might try to harm them. Can you send word out? I want to go back to Ayla."

"Zelandoni already told me to start a signal fire to the nearby caves, so I've tried to call the zelandonia from the nearby caves, but you know that means the leaders will come, too. I'll send someone over to the Fourteenth cave to deliver the message about the horses, though, and perhaps escort whoever decides to come along back," Joharran said, thinking about who to send, and Jondalar almost volunteered to go on horseback, but Ayla was lying cold and stiff up in the abri, and he could hardly bear to be away from her. "In any case, I'm sure the animals will be fine, but if you are so concerned, I'll have someone stay and watch them for you."

"Well do your best, and put the word out about them at least," Jondalar said, feeling frazzled and tired and unable to make the right decision no matter what path he took. He was exhausted, and wanted nothing more to lie down in a bed with Ayla - but Ayla was sick and badly in danger, and there was no rest to be had.

Jondalar finished unhitching the travois and led the two horses out to the broad grassy field next to Wood River, then untied their lead ropes, which the two horses took as a signal that they were free to explore the place he had left them. As Jondalar turned to walk away, the horses took off for a good canter around the field, and Jondalar let them.

He then enlisted the leader's help with his and Ayla's belongings, and in a couple of trips they had brought up all the packages and horse equipment to the abri. As they were finishing bringing things into Marthona's dwelling, the woman herself showed up, huffing and puffing a bit, having been away from the abri when the ruckus happened.

"I saw the signal fire," she said, pushing graying brown hair out of her face, seeing only Joharran standing outside her dwelling. "What's going on? Why are you calling a meeting?"

Joharran's answer was only an enigmatic smile, and after a couple of moments of quiet, Jondalar stepped out of the dwelling. Marthona had been holding a basket full of whole uprooted cattail plants, but when Jondalar appeared she dropped it and gasped. She felt her heart flutter alarmingly, but she willed it to settle down, and the aging woman stepped forward to embrace her lost, wandering son.

"Jondalar! It's you! I thought I heard someone say your name as I was coming here, but I couldn't believe it!" she cried, her arms around the tall blonde, her face in his shoulder and her words muffled. She felt tears threatening, and she trembled, which Jondalar felt. He gently rubbed his mother's back, then released her, and looked down into her face. She had aged visibly, but she was still the same woman, and her joy was radiant. "It's been five years and you hardly look a day older. Where is that other son of mine? Has he brought animals home with him too?" she asked, but the joy on her face ebbed away as she saw the pain on her son's.

"Oh, Jondalar, no, don't tell me that," Marthona said, pleadingly, but her son shook his head. She looked up at her other child, and he seemed just as stunned as she was. Marthona slowly released Jondalar, then turned away from him and picked up the basket she'd been carrying. Most of the plants inside it had spilled onto the ground, but she went past him into the dwelling without picking them up, and went to sit at the table Thonolan had helped to make. Joharran looked at his brother with mute surprise, then watched as Jondalar turned and walked away, carrying his pack which he had quickly rearranged. Jondalar left from sight, going behind another family's dwelling on his way to Zelandoni's, and Joharran turned to go inside Marthona's.

The giant wolf watched Jondalar approach from where he sat outside Zelandoni's door, and he yipped urgently when the man drew near. From inside the dwelling, Jondalar could hear Zelandoni chanting alongside his sister, and he recognized the soothing rhythms. "Come on, Wolf," he said, as he moved the drape aside for the creature, and tentatively the wolf entered, with Jondalar following behind.

As the man entered the dwelling, Folara looked up at him from the hearth where she was tending the tea Zelandoni had put on to boil. She looked down and watched the wolf as it came inside too, but when it didn't growl or look threatening at all, she decided to ignore it for now. She quickly scooped out ladleful of tea into a wooden cup as Jondalar set his pack down and settled onto a seat near the table upon which Ayla lay, and Folara was at his side with it in a moment. Jondalar took the wooden cup and drank without noticing the tea's flavor, draining the cup and handing it back to his sister, his eyes never leaving his beloved's face.

Zelandoni was seated beside him, and was slowly passing the carved and pierced staff over Ayla's body, letting the dangling feathers brush over the furs that covered her, from head to toe. She had given the rattle to Jonokol, who was standing beside Zelandoni and shaking it in the proper rhythm as Zelandoni continued her chant.

Wolf had entered the dwelling, but stood uncertainly in one empty corner, staring at Ayla's face. Her bedside was crowded by strange people, and the wolf wanted nothing more than to go to Ayla and lick her beautiful face, but he was made uneasy by the unfamiliar people in the unfamiliar place making unfamiliar sounds. Slowly, he sat down, then lay down, putting his head on his paws, but his eyes stayed trained on the bed.

After a time, Jondalar picked up the healing chant as well, humming it and then singing along in nonsense syllables with the proper tone and cadence. Then he began voicing the chant as pleas to the Mother. "Doni, oh Doni, Mother of All, please bring my Ayla back to me. Ayla, oh Ayla, mother of my child-" Here Zelandoni gave him a surprised look, but did not stop her chant, "-come back to me from the Spirit World."

  
~~**~~**~~**~~

  
_She was in a deep, dark cavern, and there was no light to be found. She was lost, cold, scared, and blundering about, brushing her hands into unseen stones and stubbing her toes against the uneven floor. She was lost, lost in the womb of the Mother, and had no idea how to get out._

_Then, from a distance away to her side, there came a light growing in intensity, as if the sun had been covered but was slowly emerging. Ayla turned and hurried toward the light, but instead of being a cave entrance it was an enormous bonfire lit in the center of a glimmering white cave. The walls of this cave were pure, pristine, and glittered with a rainbowing intensity. They seemed to be thin, though, tenebrous, and hollow, and she stepped forward to place her hands on its surface._

_Suddenly, she was falling, falling through a pearlescent cloud full of the same glittering sparkles. She was gaining speed, rushing through a tempest, faster than she'd ever moved before. Suddenly, she broke through the cloud layer - and was in a deep, cold, dark place, devoid of sight, sound, light, motion and meaning._

_She knew this place and knew it well, knew it for what it was - Darkness, Chaos. Mamut had told her of the force that sapped the Mother's life and brought winter. That was Chaos, and it was in the midst of that force which she was now lost. She could remember Mamut telling her that this place was dangerous, and that she should never go there again without proper protection - but she was here now, alone, lost, and unable to move even a single inch of any part of her body. She tried to scream, but her voice was worse than paralyzed - it was nonexistent. Not even her breath could stir._

_Then thinly, faintly, she heard a voice. It was keening, wailing, but it was stretched and distorted, and sounded as though it were coming from a long distance away. She saw a face rise in her mind's eye; it resembled the face she had often seen in still waters, her own face, but it was subtly different, and Ayla suddenly recognized the mother she had lost when she was just a child. It was this mother's voice she was hearing, a strange wail changing in pitch and intensity, but seeming to carry a message with it even though it lacked words._

_From directly beside her, then, Ayla heard a voice. She could not really understand it, but it was more clear than the voice of the woman, and she could hear that it was a man, calling out to Doni. The face before her slowly turned away, and Ayla could see that she was radiantly blonde. The blonde back of her head turned into the Sun, and Ayla's eyes were dazzled - but a dark shape slowly moved in front of the sun, and then both vanished._

_Ayla's dazzled eyes recovered slowly, and she realized that she was standing in a dimly lit cavern. The only light was from the torch in her hand, and she held it up to see better. All around her were beautiful flowing rock formations, and upon them were the negative imprints of hands, large red and black dots, and a cave lion painted in beautiful realistic detail so clear Ayla could swear that she could see it moving. She reached out to it and laid her hand upon it - then she was falling forward again._

_She was running on all fours, not riding upon a beast but being a beast - she could feel the primal difference, could smell every scent on the ground and in the wind, hear every mouse scratching and every bird singing. She was racing, her heart pounding, her sisters beside her, as she jumped, and fastened her deadly hooked claws into the flesh of the aurochs, and bit down with her dagger-like teeth and tasted blood._

_She was running on two feet, racing, pounding the ground, gripping a spear-thrower in one hand. "JONDALAR!" she cried out, knowing he was in terrible danger. She could see the cave lion racing toward him, but as she threw her spear, the lion chasing him suddenly turned into Baby, and she recognized his rufous mane. "BABY! NOOOOO!" she screamed, as the spear drove into his neck._

_She was holding a pair of tiny lion cubs on her lap, both babies frightened and trembling, barely old enough to have opened their eyes. Ayla knew if she was to keep them alive, they would need constant care. She would have to be with them always - and yet, she found herself strangely pleased by the notion. Another woman was approaching her, this one with black skin darker even than Ranec's, and Ayla recognized her as a friend. The woman wore a pelt of a cave lion, but when she reached out to stroke the fuzzy little cub, her face was full of maternal affection. From behind her emerged a fully grown lioness, who approached without fear, and Ayla recognized her too._

_She was holding an infant, perfectly formed if not a little squashed looking from birth a few days prior. Though she looked otherwise healthy, she was tiny, and she had been born prematurely. Ayla knew that if her child was to survive, she would have to be next to her breast constantly, but Ayla would not want it any other way._

_She was holding an infant, a baby boy, sturdy and stocky and heavy, but his neck was too weak to hold up his head. She held it up for him, supporting it, looking deep into the baby's eyes, and he looked back. His eyes were deep brown, the color of the Clan. In her arms, she knew she held the link between the people who had loved and raised her, and the people to whom she had been born._

_Creb was standing before her. Clamped between his body and the stub of his bad arm, he held a paste of red ochre. He made the motions announcing the adoption of a new infant into the Clan, then dipped down and withdrew a dab of the red paste. "This child's name is Ayla," he motioned, and then reached out and painted a streak down Ayla's face. The paste was wet and cold; Ayla felt it clearly on her skin._

_She was running, running from a lion, and the lion wanted to kill her. It roared and she screamed, and her voice was that of a child. Quickly, breathless, she ran to a cave in the side of a wall, with an opening neatly covered by hazelnut bushes. She pushed through and entered into the dark safety of the cave._

_An earthquake was rumbling the entire world. "Get out!" she heard Creb order her, not with his voice, but with his thoughts inside her mind. "Get out now!" Ayla turned and ran out of the darkness, and emerged onto the ledge outside her cave in the valley of horses._

_"Ayla! Get out of the way, it's a cave lion!" Jondalar was yelling, but she threw herself between the lion and the man._

_"Jondalar, no! Don't!" When she turned to meet the lion, she saw it was a gigantic cave lioness, and astride her back was a beautiful woman with dark brown skin that was almost black in its depth, wearing a lion fur carrying cloak in which she carried two baby lion cubs. Ayla rushed to her, and the woman handed down the two baby cubs into Ayla's arms. They were babies, sisters, still fuzzy and funny looking and squeaky. Beside her, a gigantic wolf was poking his nose down. One of the cubs hissed, but then he licked the baby's fur, and she began to utter mewling noises, her sister copying her quickly, and Ayla laughed, and the woman riding the lioness laughed too._

_Ayla was standing in front of Wolf, but they were both in a deep, deep cave, and Ayla's torch had gone out. "Wolf, help me," she pleaded in a voice that, to her, sounded tiny and scared. Wolf yipped and she felt him brush past her leg, and when she reached down he was there, and she was able to take a gentle hold of the bright red halter tied around his body, and slowly they walked together out of the cave._

_As they exited the cave together, Ayla became aware that she and Wolf were part of a huge procession of people and animals. They were all coming streaming out of the cave mouth, and from all sides Ayla was being jostled and bumped by animals and people pushing past her, hurrying out of the cave. She saw Jondalar run past, but when she called out he didn't turn. Then she saw another Jondalar, and another, and then realized they were all his ancestors, like him but subtly different in each form. She thought she could recognize Dalanar, but they were gone too quickly, lost in the sea of beings._

_Creb walked past her then, leading Iza who led Uba who was holding Durc in her arms. "Durc!" Ayla called out, and the baby began to cry. Uba stopped as Creb and Iza walked on and disappeared into the crowd, and the girl who Ayla had loved as a sister put her baby down. The baby sat up, then stood up, and before Ayla's eyes became a fully grown man of the Clan. He strongly resembled the other men she had known, with curly brown hair and a bushy beard, wearing the familiar masculine wrap around his body, but he carried a sling and bola, and wore a cloak made of the fur of a wolf. He was much taller, and his forehead rose high and straight. She could see how strongly he resembled the face she had seen looking back at her from still water, and she began to cry._

_A woman who looked much like Durc walked up to his side and then sat down in front of him. He tapped her shoulder, then looked up at his mother and made a gesture to her. "Walk with Ursus," he said, and then turned and walked away with his mate. Out of the crowd of animals, a pack of wolves emerged, and surrounded the two people of mixed spirits, but neither seemed to fear the other. And behind them, followed a she-bear and her mate, walking together in shambling gait, enormous, the personification of all the Clan._

_Ayla turned around and saw that the cavern from which everyone was emerging was actually the gigantic opening of a tremendous earth-woman's vulva. The woman was greater than any mountain Ayla had seen, but her skin was one with the land, and her hair was the golden grass of the steppe, and from her opening flowed all the waters of the world. Her face was shrouded in clouds, but from behind them Ayla could see a beautiful glowing, like the Sun behind the clouds of dawn on an overcast day._

_Slowly the clouds parted, but Ayla did not see the face she expected - instead, she saw a piece of plain leather, and she reached out with her hand. There was no way she could have been close enough to touch it, but there she was, and there was a piece of charcoal in her hand. Slowly she made the circular motion that Mamut had shown her, making a mark of a plain black circle, and from a far off distance she heard a voice rumbling like thunder: "The Mother chooses."_

_She looked away from what she had done, dropping the charcoal, and saw the procession of animals flowing away from the great mountainous woman, whose skin was grass and whose flesh was earth. Out of the horde of creatures, a trio of horses emerged, a pale stallion chasing after a dun mare and her bay colt. Ayla whistled to her friend, but the horse didn't seem to hear her. The stallion whinnied a shrill call, and then Whinney presented to him, and the two began to share pleasures._

_When the two parted, Whinney stepped away, but her belly had expanded with pregnancy immediately to a lush round circular shape, and she was giving birth, whinnying and straining. A pale filly was born from her womb, and again Ayla heard the giant voice declaring: "The Mother chooses."_

_Ayla felt herself lifting slowly off the ground, drawn into the air by a mysterious force, and then she was flying, flying away, over mountains and steppes and rivers and valleys and woods, flying toward the sea. She could see it clearly, the Waters of the West, which she had only ever heard Jondalar tell of in tales. They were so vast, Ayla could not see any land within them, and they stretched out and on away into the hazy distance._

_She was flying towards a cave near the slopes closest to the water, and when she came near she saw people bustling about. There were people making boats, curing leather, tending food and fires, but she could sense that this was not her time, not the time her body lay in. This was antiquity; this was the first group of people to make such a boat, to live in this area and even attempt to do what they were planning._

_She drew near enough to clearly see the face of one of these people, his dark hair blown about by the sea breeze. Then he looked up, suddenly, startled by something, and Ayla felt herself propelled away, flying back over the land, far away._

_"Cooomeee baaaack toooo mmmeeeee," she heard, from a long distance away, but the voice was distorted, and she could not tell who called her, or from where._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note about canon-bending in this chapter:
> 
> Jonokol is first mentioned on page 317 of the Shelters of Stone and we don't get a whole lot of back-story on him. In LoPC we hear that the previous Zelandoni of the Second Cave had seen potential in Jonokol when he was just a boy and she trained Jonokol before she died, and she had been the most widely acclaimed artist of her time. I'm left to assume that he grew up in Elder Hearth, trained with their Zelandoni until she died, and then became the First's acolyte and moved to the Ninth Cave. However, when did the Zelandoni of the Second Cave die? How old is Jonokol? Zolena became Zelandoni just before Jondalar left on with Thonolan, so Jonokol would have been training with Zelandoni for less than five years. I'm assuming Jonokol is an average young adult, so I'm going to make these assumptions about him:
> 
> Jonokol grew up at Elder Hearth and trained with their Zelandoni since he was a young boy. When he reached puberty, around 12, was about the time that his mentor died and Zolena became Zelandoni. When she was appointed First, Jonokol was about 13 and a man, but not terribly interested in hunting and mating and gambling and messing around like other young men. He was always rather serious minded and cared more about making images and pleasing the Mother with his work, realizing that hunting is necessary for living, but pleasing the Mother is necessary for all to live. Jonokol is 17 by the time Jondalar returns with Ayla, and Jon is remarking that he is already 23 and Ayla is 19 at the end of Plains of Passage.
> 
> Therefore, Jondalar remembers Jonokol as a serious, quiet young man always scratching bears and horses into the dirt with a stick instead of knapping tools or curing leather or making spears or any of the other more useful chores. Kind of a nerd, really.
> 
> I'm going to assume it's touched upon in the books, but I've searched Jonokol by name and we don't hear very much about him. So I'm taking liberties and making some plausible stuff up.
> 
> In addition, I think Jonokol was described very loosely in the books. I'm doing a search of him by name, and it seems that he's always just Jonokol, and he's always just there. He met Ayla off-screen at the welcoming feast in SoS, and he shows up later just like "hi Ayla. bye Ayla" and not thoroughly described. So if my descriptions are inaccurate, it's because I couldn't recall or find a good description on a quick search through the books...
> 
> However I welcome any and all notes of "Jonokol actually looks like this and grew up there", because as I say, I want to be pretty close to canon.


	3. Chapter Three: Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zelandoni tries to comfort a grieving family, and decides that there is something she can do for Ayla after all.

In all, Ayla and Jondalar's turbulent homecoming took only a couple of hours, and it hadn't yet been midday when they'd arrived. The word had spread quickly that the wandering Jondalar had returned with a sick woman and a bunch of spirit animals, but not his brother, and the signal fire Joharran had directed to be started had done its job in calling people to their shelter.

The abri was a giant overhang, not quite a cave in the cliffside but a sheltered pocket within the rock that had been worn out by water millions of years ago. The space inside the shelter of the abri was enormous, extremely wide and deep enough to offer protection from the elements and space for over two hundred individuals to make their dwellings in the back of the cave and not even take up half of the overall sheltered space.

The Ninth Cave was the largest such shelter in the area, indeed the largest known to the Zelandonii people, and its status, and the status of its leader and Zelandoni, meant that it was held in high esteem by the other Caves, and most leaders were always eager to meet with Joharran and attempt to curry favor. Those with less status who could not attempt to gain status by being near the leader nonetheless also had a strong drive to get in good with the people of the Ninth Cave, and to have one's goods appraised and declared of high value by someone in the Ninth Cave always meant you'd see more trade than before.

Signal fires were often lit to call the Caves together, and the sight of a signal fire was usually taken as an invitation to gather at that Cave, unless it had been made in a certain special way to warn of illness or danger. The huge bonfire Joharran had started signaled clearly to the rest of the caves that the Zelandonia were being summoned, but they were free to bring others, and a signal fire at the Ninth Cave always meant something big.

The first to come to the call was the tall, friendly leader of the Fourteenth Cave, Brameval, who brought his Zelandoni and her acolyte along too, as well as a bevy of others from his cave who came bearing goods to trade. However, when they arrived, all of the higher status members of the Cave were indisposed, and the situation quickly became awkward.

Standing out in the clearing near the river in front of the Ninth Cave abri, the visitors from downstream milled about nervously, and gossip quickly started when the horses came into sight, made curious by the new strangers. Brameval was on good terms with Joharran, but he knew there was tension between the zelandonia of the two caves, and he didn't want to risk an incident by just barging into the Ninth Cave's home - but the signal fire was clearly still burning, and Brameval was tempted to go up without invitation. He knew Joharran wouldn't have called them without a reason...

But politeness was more than just custom for the Zelandonii - it was understood that without courtesy and respect, the close quarters that the people had to share could quickly become a hostile space, and for the people to survive, only kindness and friendship could be allowed to grow. Brameval was a good leader, and had been taught this lesson early, and he didn't want to be the one responsible for starting an incident between the two closely related groups.

However, the situation quickly passed awkward when he spotted Kareja and some others from the Eleventh Cave approaching. Brameval had told the others to start a signal fire and pass the Ninth Cave's summons on when he'd left, and it appeared that the message had been taken up. If Kareja was coming already, then he'd had to have kept his cave waiting out here for far too long. But no one had come out to greet them yet, and Brameval was becoming more than agitated. He knew they'd been seen and noticed, but he also knew that none of the people up there were important enough to offer greetings to the leader of another Cave.

Brameval wondered just what in Doni's name Joharran thought he was doing, calling a meeting but not coming to meet anyone, and then he saw the tall, brown haired leader finally coming out from the shadows within the shelter. Brameval gave a quick cry to summon his people's attentions - by now they had spread out to collect fire-wood and other goods from around the riverbank - and as they assembled and clustered together near the path down from the abri, Kareja and her band arrived.

Watching the esteemed leader come down the path, Brameval had a quick thought that perhaps the man was sick, for his motions didn't seem quite normal, and then he drew near and Brameval became really concerned.

Joharran looked pale, drawn, and rather ill, walking with slower steps and somewhat jerky motions. But when he came near and spoke, he seemed almost normal, and Brameval became more concerned. He recognized the face of grief well, and wondered who had died - then he recalled the rumor he'd heard from someone who had been watching the path earlier, who had told him that someone who resembled Jondalar had passed by their cave earlier with animals and a woman, but if it was Jondalar then his brother was gone, and Brameval was quick enough to put those pieces together.

"Brameval," Joharran was saying, holding out his hands and trying to smile, and Brameval quickly covered his concern and stepped forward to greet the leader. "Welcome to the Ninth Cave, thank you for coming so fast," he continued, then released Brameval's hands to greet the rest of the group. "Zelandoni of the Fourteenth Cave, welcome. We have need of you especially; my wandering brother has brought home a sick woman and our Zelandoni doesn't think she can heal her alone."

This announcement brought a rumble of murmurs from the gathered members of the Fourteenth Cave, and as Kareja drew near she heard one person saying, "If the First can't heal her alone then something must REALLY be wrong." The tall, thin leader of the Eleventh Cave hastened her step at that, her eyes locked on the other present leaders, and as she approached she called out.

"Ho there, Brameval! Ho there, Joharran! What's this I hear about a sick woman?" the woman asked as she approached, and she saw the two men exchange a glance and felt slightly irritated. But she mentally prepared herself, and reached out her hands for a quick formal greeting, which she dashed off as quickly as she could, caring less for formalities and more for sick persons.

She had brought her Zelandoni, who had brought his mate, who had brought his adopted daughter, and naturally a trip to the Ninth Cave meant a trading mission, so a gaggle of other hangers on had followed along to the Cave as well, and Kareja was eager to see whether they should stay overnight, and whether she needed to direct her group to make camp in the open space of the abri.

Kareja could tell her Zelandoni was anxious about the sick person as well, and she hurried the formalities along for more than just her sake, saying as she released Joharran's hands, "If someone is ill, then the quicker Zelandoni gets up there the better."

Joharran frowned slightly, and nodded, saying, "It doesn't look like a normal illness, but something related to the spirit realm. We are all quite concerned. Please, zelandonia, go on in, you know where the First lives. Kareja, Brameval, come with me. I think you'll want to stay overnight. I've got a place saved for you and any others coming, and a feast is planned tonight." He was managing to keep his expression neutral and his face level though his heart screamed for grief of the young brother he learned he'd lost, and as he turned to lead the leaders away, Kareja too noticed quite clearly that something was deeply wrong, noticed his jerky movements and distracted look.

But what could she do? Kareja was not zelandoni, and the zelandonia who had come with them had hurried off the instant it became clear that this was a spiritual problem. Kareja's strengths were in leading the people, and commanding a rafting crew, not in long talks about feelings, and she felt frustrated that a problem lay before her whose solution depended on skills she didn't have.

Joharran led them to a space near the dwellings that was often used as a gathering area; it was dotted with large communal hearths, and the space was usually co-opted by people spreading out their crafting projects there, but Joharran had ordered the space cleared, and it was relatively clean and flat. Joharran then left Kareja and Brameval, abruptly and without explanation, and the two other leaders shared a long, meaningful, concerned look.

  
~*~*~*~

  
"Zelandoni?" came a voice from outside the drape over the First's door, and the woman was quick to look up from her chanting. She gestured to Folara and Jonokol to keep up their own healing sounds, then gave Jondalar a piercing look.

Jondalar didn't notice at first, his focus on his lover's face, but when Zelandoni cleared her throat loudly he looked up. "Huh?"

"Jondalar, please, greet our visitors," she said, gesturing to the door, and she almost regretted it for the tortured look he gave her before looking back to Ayla. But Zelandoni was reluctant to leave the unconscious woman without her chanting or her presence, and she gave Jondalar a hard look. After a brief moment of hesitation, the man stood and stepped over to the door to untie the flap and hold it open.

"Welcome," he muttered, standing aside, and the two zelandonia entered. The Zelandoni of the Fourteenth, a tall, willowy woman with grey hair she wore in a long braid, came in first, striding in and immediately spotting the unconscious woman. The Zelandoni of the Eleventh Cave came in second, but he followed the Fourteenth's lead and studied the woman laid out on the familiar table.

The First dealt with injuries often, and all the zelandonia were used to blood, but ailments of the spirit were more ephemeral and terrifying than a physical wound could ever be. The Fourteenth knew enough to control her fear, but the Eleventh knew reason to fear - his elan was one like Zelandoni the First's, loosely attached to his body, and he had been told often enough that his elan had taken a piece of the spirit world into itself, which explained his preference for male mates. If there was a danger to someone's spirit lingering near this sick woman, then he could be in real danger.

The First looked up from her patient and stretched out an arm to the two zelandonia, waving them closer. Folara and Jonokol stepped away from the table, but neither stopped their noise, and the two zelandonia stepped close to hear the First more clearly over the rattling.

"Zelandoni, I greet you," the First said quickly, "but I cannot offer you proper hospitality. This woman's elan has fled her body, and I am deeply concerned about her." Her explanation was brief, but impressed the sense of severity onto the two visitors.

The Eleventh spoke up first, replying, "I am glad to have come, Zelandoni the First, but if her elan is lost, then what can we do?" The Fourteenth beside him nodded, having been close to asking the same question, and the First stared hard at both of them before answering.

"I believe her elan is lost, but not gone, and if it is to find its way back at all, it needs something familiar to come back to," the heavy Zelandoni replied, and the Eleventh was nodding, understanding. "I don't know if she knows the chants and rhythms, but all we can do is try. It will give her a focal point at the very least, and I think that if her body is kept alive and somewhat aware, then her elan will be more strongly drawn back to it.

"I have been singing the Healing Chant," she continued to explain, "but it hasn't seemed to do much for her yet. I know many chants to banish sickness from the body, but I only know of a few chants that draw or banish elans. What I would like to do is set up a ceremony to call the Mother and ask her to give this woman a guide in the spirit world who can bring her home, but I don't dare leave a sick woman without supervision. I called you because I will need you to chant for me while I try to prepare everything."

"I think I can help," Zelandoni the Eleventh stated, then drew his backpack off of his back and set it on the ground to open its top flap and drawstring. He reached in and drew out something in a rawhide case, but when he withdrew it Zelandoni the First smiled broadly. "I've brought my healing drum," he said proudly, holding up the instrument to show those in the dwelling. It was a piece of skin that had been stretched extra thin over a strong bentwood frame, and then attached to a deep wooden bowl in such a way that when it was tapped it made a pleasant percussive noise.

Holding it in his hands, the Eleventh said, "I'm sure I can help with the rhythms and chants, though your acolytes are doing quite well."

"Folara is just a helper," the First corrected the Eleventh, who nodded. "Jonokol is my true acolyte. But yes, please, stay and play your drum. Zelandoni the Fourteenth, will you help us?"

The Fourteenth looked at the First and her expression was hard to read; the First felt a momentary pang of irritation but banished it, reasoning that if the Fourteenth resented being called out here just to chant over a sick person, it was her right, and the First kept clearly in mind the fact that the Fourteenth was a very strong Second Ranked Healer, and that if she herself had not been made Zelandoni the First when she did, the Fourteenth would have taken that honor.

But then the Fourteenth was nodding, taking off her own pack, and going to put it down, and the First felt her irritation settle a bit.

Then the Fourteenth uttered a sudden terrified yelp and recoiled, and those inside the dwelling started and stared at her. Too late, Zelandoni remembered the wolf in the corner.

He had been sitting so quietly that the First had almost forgotten about him, and the Fourteenth had mistaken him for just a pile of furs - but when she turned to put her pack in the empty corner and saw golden eyes staring into her face, she had been terrified. Wolf was the largest canine the woman had ever seen, and she knew well what wolves could do.

Jondalar stood up quickly and crossed the room to kneel beside the wolf, to calm him as much as to reassure himself, but Jondalar noticed quickly that the wolf wasn't growling and didn't seem hardly agitated at all, despite the sudden loud noise and the stranger. "Sorry, Zelandoni," he apologized, looking up at the Fourteenth, "Wolf didn't mean to scare you. He is a friend, to me and to Ayla."

The Fourteenth could only gawp at Jondalar in stunned silence, the rattling of Jonokol's shell-beads loud in the dwelling - Folara had stopped chanting at the loud noise but quickly picked it back up again - looking from the man to the beast. The wolf did seem rather calm and quiet, and his eyes were so bright and intelligent. They seemed to be looking into the Fourteenth, or at least she felt that way briefly, until the beast looked away, directing his gaze back to the sick woman, and the Fourteenth looked as well. When she looked back, Jondalar was getting up and looking up at her, and she nodded finally.

"Friends with a wolf," she said, "alright, I'll believe it. But is he... safe?"

"Wolf wouldn't harm anyone who wasn't trying to hurt Ayla," Jondalar replied, rather tonelessly, and the Fourteenth found that she wasn't exactly comforted by that statement. But she turned back to the patient laid out on the table, put down her pack near the wall, and stepped over to examine the woman. The Eleventh was already there, tapping his drum with his fingers experimentally, and the Fourteenth prepared to sing a chant.

The First watched the two preparing, and she approved silently, beginning to stand up from her seat. Jonokol and Folara moved away to give her space, and once she was standing she gave the Fourteenth a signal to begin chanting. When she did, in a low alto, the First motioned to Folara to quiet, and then she spoke to the girl, and Jondalar listened as well.

"You and Jondalar should go and stay with Marthona for now," Zelandoni said, her expression rather grim. "More zelandonia will be arriving, and they will know better how to chant. Thank you for your assitance, but we need to take Jondalar home."

Zelandoni was quick-witted and often able to see implications and explanations for things, both intuitively and with an extrasensory knack that came to her from her close connection to the spirit world. She had had enough time while chanting to clear her mind and consider the implications of Jondalar bringing home a woman, two horses, and a giant wolf, but not his brother; Zelandoni assumed that he had been left somewhere along Jondalar's trail, alive or dead, and knew that Jondalar's young, sweet sister, close sibling to Thonolan, didn't know yet. Zelandoni wondered if Marthona knew, but she supposed Jondalar had met her when bringing his packs into her dwelling, assuming without invitation that his mother would shelter him.

It was only a matter of time before the whole family knew, though, and Willamar would be returning soon from his trading expedition; Zelandoni was pulled in two ways, between wanting to stay with the sick woman, and knowing she needed to attend to the grief of the family, and her concern for the people she knew ultimately trumped the needs of the sick woman. She was able to quickly rationalize her decision, but her worry for Ayla nagged at the edge of her mind as she made the decision.

"Zelandoni, no," Jondalar complained after the First had spoken, and Zelandoni almost let herself be moved by the sheer raw emotion in his voice. His voice was ragged, a little raw from having shouted so hard earlier, and strained from the day's stresses; he seemed to have to force his voice to obey him, and Zelandoni almost let it sway her. "I have to stay with Ayla. How can I leave her like this?"

"Jondalar," she said gently, stepping over to where he sat nearest the door, so she could lay a hand on his shoulder with tender gentleness. "Jondalar, I know you love her, but you may not be able to help her right now. Your mother needs to see you too. You've been gone for five years, and she was certain she'd lost you forever."

Jondalar grimaced, closing his eyes and turning away from Zelandoni, and she could only guess what fresh thought tortured him, but she reached her other hand out and took both his shoulders, turning him back around to face her.

"Jondalar. Please. If not for anyone's sake, but for... Ayla, wasn't it? She needs the help of the zelandonia. More will be coming, and there isn't room in here for all of us plus you. I'm not saying you can't see her again, but for right now, I need space in my home," the woman explained, keeping her voice level and serious, looking her ex lover directly in the face as she spoke. He opened his eyes to listen to her, and she felt herself drawn in as she had always been - not just to the color, but to the force of his elan, the charisma of his spirit. There was something about her that compelled, and she felt herself almost fall in.

It would be so easy to fall back in, too - she could recall clearly, when she still named herself Zolena, how she could get drawn into those vivid blue eyes and then find herself lost in thoughts and feelings that weren't her own. She remembered feeling the overwhelming intensity of his love surround and suffuse her, and she found that even after all this time she still hungered for it.

But she was a trained Zelandoni now, and she could control what compelled her, and whose elan she let communicate with her own. With effort, slipping halfway between the spirit world and reality, she stepped away from the man who had once begged her to mate him. She broke eye contact and looked over at Folara, who was busy looking away from them and at the wolf in the corner. Zelandoni wondered if the beast would stay in here with the woman and if he would frighten the rest of the zelandonia who were coming, but she decided that the wolf had been calm so far, and the risk was one she could take.

Her mind was still focused halfway on the spirit world, though, and when she looked at the wolf, and he looked back, she found herself experiencing something in the spirit world. It was like hearing a shout from far, far away echoing off of a mountainside, but simultaneously being next to the one who was shouting, and though the First was less disoriented when the spirit world would suddenly call her, Zelandoni still felt a wave of strangeness wash over her as her skin grew cold and prickled with goosebumps.

_She was standing in front of a young man, just past puberty, but whose hair was a mottled color of mainly grey, but with browns, tans and shades of white mixed in, strongly resembling the coat of a wolf. His eyes were piercing, bright gold, and they seemed to stare directly into her, through her, knowing all about her - she felt she had no secrets kept from the young man, though not a word passed between them. She saw the young man begin to move his mouth and speak, but no sound came out, and distantly, faintly, she heard a pack of wolves howling._

Then she was back into her body, jolting a little bit and finding herself shivering. She looked over to Jondalar, then to Folara, but the two didn't really seem to have noticed anything. She looked back at the wolf, carefully, exerting effort to keep her elan firmly grounded, but the wolf simply looked up at her with a calm expression, his head down on his paws. Zelandoni shook herself, then went into her room to retrieve her cloak of mammoth hide with the fur left on. It was warm, though very heavy, and Zelandoni thought she would wear it herself for a while before coming back to lay it atop the cold body of Ayla.

"Jonokol," she said as she exited her room, stepping close to the acolyte.

"Yes, Zelandoni," he said, leaning in and switching the rattle from one hand to the other.

"I want you to greet any zelandonia who might come to my lodge while I'm out. I should be back soon, but if I should take too long, I give you full permission to command my dwelling," the donier said, and Jonokol, though surprised, nodded quickly.

"Will the wolf come with us?" Zelandoni asked a few moments later she led Folara and Jondalar out of her dwelling.

"I don't think so," Jondalar said, his voice flat and distracted; he was already looking over his shoulder at the building they were leaving, and his expression was tortured, but Zelandoni felt a tiny flicker of irritation return. They were, after all, basically going just next door, but Jondalar seemed to be right as they left the area and no wolf followed.

The dwellings of those held in high esteem by the Ninth Cave were much larger in proportion to the dwellings of others, and those homes were clustered together at the most sheltered part in the back of the abri. Zelandoni the First, Proleva and Joharran, Marthona and Willamar, Salova and Rushemar, and Ramara and Solaban, all had large, well-constructed dwellings full of nice things. Surrounding them were the homes of other relatively high status people of the Cave, but none who could outrank the Advisors to Leader, Former and Current Leaders, and the Zelandonia.

The farther one's home was built from the home of the leader was indicative of status, but was also a more complicated; homes were often built to last for generations, with additions being built onto the sides of older homes, and families often stayed in one dwelling for their whole lifetimes, a child being raised, being mated, living with their parents, outliving said parents, and raising their own children in the home. Often, though, new places were being built - the loose density of the shelters meant that there was always plenty of workspace, as well as room for communal fireplaces, and sites for new homes. For new homes the proximity rule meant just as much, and spaces near the high-ranked homes were considered reserved for those of high status to claim - though low status members often hung around in the communal areas near the high status homes, hoping to rub elbows with those higher ups and garner favor.

Zelandoni's home was quite near to Marthona's, and it was just a short walk across a communal area to get to the dwelling. Zelandoni's large limestone block seat was near this area as well, and Jondalar idly noted it as they walked past, as he noted the familiar faces that stared, openly and unabashedly, at the returned traveler.

Jondalar was having trouble focusing; his mind was still with Ayla, and he was worrying obsessively whether she would come home or not. She has to, he'd think, but then torture himself with visions of what it would be like if she never did. He was so distracted he almost bumped into Zelandoni as she paused outside Marthona's dwelling to scratch on the drape and seek admittance, but he stepped away quickly, and stared off into the distance.

It took a couple moments for Marthona to come to the door, but when she did, Zelandoni could see immediately that she had been told the bad news about her youngest son. Her face, still so composed and dignified, seemed to have aged years, and she looked pale and drawn. Zelandoni immediately searched her face for signs that her heart condition was troubling her, but it seemed only to be grief, and Zelandoni reached out to take one of her arthritic hands with gentle care.

"Marthona," she said quietly, and with feeling, and the other woman simply nodded, and closed her eyes.

"What is it? Mother?" Folara asked from behind the two women, and Zelandoni turned and stepped aside so Folara could address her mother more directly. "Mother, what's the matter? Is... is something..." the young woman began to ask, but trailed off, looking from Jondalar to Marthona.

Jondalar had come home with a bunch of animals and a woman, but no Thonolan, and Folara was no dull knife either. She had been able to see the implications but couldn't accept it, wouldn't, until she heard Jondalar tell his tales of where he'd been for so long. She had been waiting to hear that Thonolan would be arriving soon, bringing some other outlandish reason for being gone for five whole years. And when she realized that no, the only reason was that he couldn't come back, it intruded on her thoughts, and she could no longer deny it.

"He's not coming home, is he?" she asked, and her voice cracked, and then she was in Marthona's arms and both of them were crying, Folara heaving great gasping, keening sobs, and Marthona's tears coming more quietly but just as hard. Zelandoni watched them a moment, then looked over to Jondalar and saw his face was torn with pain too, and the donier knew she was needed.

Shifting around so she faced the assembled family, she cleared her throat and said rather loudly, almost as a command, "Why don't we go inside and discuss this with a hot drink?" Then she started to the door, and the others took her lead quickly, entering before her, taking her suggestion almost automatically.

Marthona's dwelling was constructed much like Zelandoni's - one would enter into a large main room that took up half the total floorspace, with a table, seating arrangements, and a hearth; the other half of the available space was split up into two personal bedrooms, Folara's, and Marthona's. The table was made of a large limestone slab that had been manipulated onto a frame that suspended it up off the ground and held its surface level. The sturdy bent wood of the frame had been made by Thonolan's hands; indeed there were a lot of things in and around Marthona's home that her youngest son's influence had shaped.

A large limestone block seat, like the one in the back of the abri and the one in Zelandoni's dwelling, had been moved into the home as a place for Zelandoni to sit, and the donier crossed over to the seat. It was next to the hearth, and she settled herself in to try and start a fire, reaching for the tinder and firewood kept in old baskets and piles near the hearth. But then Jondalar was standing beside her, taking the fire supplies, saying, "No, let me show you something."

In his haste and distraction earlier, Jondalar hadn't managed to show his people the most significant discovery he had made on his travels, but he was just distracted enough now to think of it, in a desparate attempt to get his mind off of the torment of a life without Ayla. But even the firestones' magic was Ayla's, and she should be the one to show it - but he dismissed it and reasoned he should still give to his people.

He arranged the materials in the fireplace, then drew out his firestone and flint striker, and in seconds, so quickly that Zelandoni could hardly see what he'd done, he had a spark drawn and a fire beginning.

"Jondalar!" the donier exclaimed, unable to hide her surprise, and Jondalar felt a brief flutter of satisfaction - it was hard to startle the canny older woman, and Jondalar felt clever for it. "How did you do that? That's so fast, it's almost instant! What are you holding?"

She was reaching out to draw his hands closer, and Jondalar opened one hand to show her the firestone. She gently, gingerly took it from his hand, then examined it, and gestured that he should hand over the striker too. She studied both stones, and saw they were worn in specific places from specific use. The two objects were obviously used together to create fire, one struck against the other it seemed, and Zelandoni was immediately intensely interested - but then she remembered the grieving family, as she heard Folara blowing her nose on downy mouflon wool, wrapping it up in a leather piece to keep it contained.

Zelandoni handed the stones back and then turned to tend the fire, which had grown quite healthy. Jondalar put the firestone and striker away in their special pouch on his belt, and then went to sit at the table with his mother and sister. The seats to the large table were also bent wood frames, but the seats of these were made of woven mats, thick and strong but flexible and comfortable to sit on, and Jondalar seated himself easily on one, leaning his elbows on the table and then putting his face in his hands. Folara sat beside him, and around the corner Marthona sat, nearest the door. Quietly, they sat together, Marthona holding a soft piece of buckskin and occasionally wiping her face with it, Folara blowing her nose into the packet of absorbent washable wool, and Zelandoni made herself busy making tea as she had done so often in this building.

Marthona needed special medicine in the morning and evening, and Zelandoni visited often enough that she was frequently the one to make it for her. Marthona was one of Zelandoni's special patients, an older woman with arthritis and health problems, but she was also Zelandoni's long-time friend, and the two enjoyed each other's company. Zelandoni knew where all the good cooking baskets were, and where the cooking stones were kept, and was able to set up the cookstones to heat, the basket full of water sitting nearby on the floor beside the hearth.

In a few minutes, she had a nice tea going, a fragrant blend of soothing herbs that Zelandoni knew were good for easing great sadness. Soon she was ladelling out cupfuls, and everyone sat drinking quietly for a few minutes. The sound of their thoughts was loud in the dwelling, and from a couple homes over they could hear the sounds of healing, chanting and drumming and rattling.

"Where is Joharran?" Zelandoni asked after another long, quiet stretch. "Does he know?"

Jondalar nodded mutely, not explaining, and the First frowned, then drew in a deep breath and calmly drank down the rest of her own cup of tea. She looked over at Marthona, whose grim countenance offerred no explanation, and Zelandoni sighed softly before speaking. "Well, I think it probably is important for Joharran to come too. I know the other leaders are arriving, but he can leave Solaban to greet them, or Rushemar if we can find him. Folara, would you go and look for Joharran?" the donier asked, and Folara nodded, getting up from the table and exiting quickly, seeming glad to have something to do. Zelandoni felt the same way, and set about making up another fresh basket of tea, more to have something to do.

Sipping her tea and then chewing the softened herbs floating in it, Zelandoni found her center and refocused herself. The last couple of hours had been a stressful mess, and had completely thrown her day off track. She thought of the plans that she'd have to mend later, but at least everyone understood that there was an emergency going on. She wondered then what had happened to Thonolan, and whether Jondalar was prepared to tell such a story under the circumstances; slowly, subtly, she shifted her gaze to study the man, trying to see him without being seen.

She needn't have used such stealth; Jondalar's mind was back at Zelandoni's dwelling. In his mind's eye, he thought of Ayla's body lying cold and still, her elan never returning, and he blamed himself, somehow; he grasped at any little thing and hated himself. He had brought her here, and this place had done this to her, and what a fool he was. He had seen her getting weaker and didn't think to stop and rest, and here was the price he paid. He clenched his teeth together and curled his hands into fists against his legs, and thought of the woman he had brought across a continent just to watch her die.

But the tea he was drinking was having its effect, and he no longer felt the scrambled intensity of panic; he no longer felt like jumping up and dashing off here and there trying to make things better. Instead he felt hopeless, useless, wrung out, but more accepting of the whole thing, and when Folara came back into the dwelling leading Joharran, Jondalar looked up and uttered a soft greeting, the others present in the dwelling following suit.

"Joharran," Zelandoni said, "please drink with us. We were just sitting down to discuss the sad business of Thonolan's fate." Her voice was soft, controlled, but compassionate, and Joharran followed her suggestion with soft acquiescent murmurings, taking the cup she pushed across the table at him. Folara sat as well and Zelandoni passed another cup along to her as well, then set about making another basket of it, effacing herself and pushing attention away.

The focus of those present shifted to Jondalar, and with a heavy sigh, he straightened his back and tried to gather his thoughts. "Well, we left together with the intention of going to the end of Donau," the blonde man started, knowing he would probably have to retell this painful story more than once. "Along our way we met many people. We even encountered flatheads, and I learned from... from someone else, that they're not as dumb as they appear. They're... even considered human by some people," he explained, carefully stepping around the issue, seeing the looks on his mother and Joharran's faces when he mentioned the Clan to them - Marthona with her nose wrinkled and her mouth in a little moue of disgust, and Joharran with a grim frown on his face.

"Thonolan had a good time; everyone loved him the instant they met him," Jondalar said, and the new lines he wore in his face deepened as he frowned, and his family felt the pain as well. Folara wept softly as her brother spoke, "We met a people called the Sharamudoi, and he fit in immediately, and fell in love with a woman there. I too found a woman to care for, but... that wasn't meant to be. Thonolan was welcomed by them, became one of them, and he thought to stay with them. But when his mate died in childbirth, Thonolan couldn't handle it, and the grief... it was like he was a different person. He insisted on travelling away, and I had to follow him, because he was so reckless and putting himself in danger... He wanted to die. I'm sure of it, looking back on it now. When he went into that lion's den, he was trying to be killed.

"You see how the horses and the wolf are friends to us? That's because of Ayla. Ayla rasied them from babies, with love and affection, and she says they obey her because they know her as their mother and friend. She did the same thing before, only this time, it was with a cave lion," he said, and he looked up to see the others' reactions. He knew such a thing was almost unthinkable, unheard of completely, and the news had been met with skepticism before. But Marthona was staring hard at him, looking surprised but not doubtful, and Zelandoni, who had motioned for the others to return their empty cups to her so she could refill them, was sitting still with a ladle in her hand, which dripped onto the table, halfway between cup and basket, and the donier's eyes were locked onto his face, burning with such an intensity that Jondalar felt dizzy a moment when looking directly at her.

After a moment he collected himself, and Folara passed a cup of tea over to him, which he drank deeply from, before continuing. "Thonolan went into a lion's den without thinking, or perhaps thinking the wrong thing, and he died. A cave lion mauled him to death. I had to follow him into the cave, and the same lion attacked me. Ayla heard Thonolan scream," Jondalar said, and frowned when he saw his mother wince at those words, "and when she came to see who was in danger, she saw that the lion attacking us was the lion she'd raised from a baby. So when she commanded him, he obeyed her, and she was able to rescue me. Thonolan was already dead, but Ayla did her best to bury him where he died. Ayla is one of the best healers I've ever met, and I'm certain I would have died if she hadn't been there at the time. But she healed me, healed my leg, and I've never limped or had any pain afterwards."

Jondalar thought how to continue, and remembered the gift he'd been given for Marthona. "Wait a moment," he said, standing and moving over to his packs, looking through them and coming up with the beautiful piece, wrapped in leather. "Marthona, here. This is from the mother of Thonolan's mate. She wanted me to give it to you. Thonolan's mate was named Jetamio, and she was a beautiful woman who loved him. This necklace was made to represent the Sharamudoi people. They are hunters of chamois, and fishers of sturgeon, and builders of boats. See how this necklace has chamois bones and fish bones? The little stone looks like the boats they made. I'm planning on making such a boat myself, someday," he said, talking without caring if he was acknowledged, feeling lost and unsure of how to comfort his family when he himself needed so much comforting.

"Jondalar, it's so pretty," Marthona said, reaching out to pick it up and hold it, turning it around in her hands. "Really beautiful, and so finely made. Everything is the same size, and the same on both sides of it. The person who made this must have been sorry to see it go. Oh Jondalar, why did Thonolan have to lose his mate and die so far from home?" Jondalar frowned as his mother broke into quiet tears again, putting the necklace down and then putting her hands to her face.

Joharran had been mostly quiet the whole time, but now he started to cry, putting his head down, trying to control it but losing his will. The family felt the loss of the charismatic and friendly youth, and though they had thought he would never return, it was another thing to hear for sure that he was dead. After a few long moments of tortured grief, Zelandoni cleared her throat to gain the attention of those present.

"The Mother chooses when to call us back to her," she began softly, sadly, and the others perked up slightly, recognizing the beginning of her speech as an intro to a chant that could be spoken or sung. "The Mother's face is life, but her other face is death. Death is not an end but a beginning, and the Underworld is a realm full of mystery, as deep as complex as the living realm. We cannot know what it is like to live in the spirit world with the Mother until we are called to return, but we can know that the end of life is peace. If a heart is dark and full of grief, if a body is weak and full of pain, the end of life is a return to peace, to wholeness, to the Mother."

The others had picked up humming the rhythm or tapping toes, and when Zelandoni stopped her even, calming chant, she saw Jondalar looking at her with a curious expression. She inclined her head toward him, raising an eyebrow. After a moment's hesitation, he spoke.

"Zelandoni, I'm wondering about that... Do you think anyone can find their way to the spirit world? Thonolan had no proper burial and I worry that his elan might be lost. I worry what might become of his elan if it never returns to the Mother and finds real peace," he said, and he had trouble talking evenly, calmly, about the possibility that his brother's spirit might not be at rest. Zelandoni frowned, recognizing the severity of such a situation.

"That is indeed a problem... I suppose if you are truly afraid, we could perform a search for his elan, but we might not be able to find him," she said, slowly, reluctantly, and Jondalar nodded, but she noticed his expression and invited him to continue.

"Well, I might remember where the place is, but I brought something from that place. A rock, a special stone from Thonolan's grave," the blonde man said, reaching for the pack he'd brought over, rummaging through and drawing out the amulet that Ayla had made for him. Within was a single piece of red ochre, and beside it was a stone that appeared normal outwardly but one facet was beautiful, gem-like, colorful. He shook the stone out into the palm of his hand, and Zelandoni drew her breath in over her teeth.

"May I see it?" she asked, reaching out to take it, and when he let her have it she sat looking it over, turning it around in her hands, feeling the energy that radiated from the stone in slow, subtle pulses. She could tell it was a powerful spiritual artefact, and she closed her fingers around it, sensing it, and focused on its power. Suddenly her elan was flying away, and she only just barely managed to hold onto her body, her mind flying far, far away, over the landscape as it changed. She reached a place where a lion roar echoed off of cliff faces, and she saw a pile of stones, and she saw the skeleton underneath - then she was back at the abri, her mind clear, seeing only a stone in her hand.

The others were looking at her, and she nodded slowly, handing it back to Jondalar. "You did the right thing by bringing this to me," she said slowly, "and I know that I will have to be careful around such an object. But we will be able to have a special ceremony. I was thinking of having a ceremony to call the Mother near and help me locate Ayla's elan - we could hold a ceremony to seek out Thonolan's elan at the same time, if you would be willing to help me, Jondalar."

The blonde man frowned, but nodded. "If it might help Ayla, I'll do it. I'd do anything for her. If you said I had to catch a lion by the tail and drag it home alive to save her, I'd die trying," he announced, with great conviction, and Zelandoni nodded again, glad she could count on the man, but worried about how strong his conviction was. If his brother died of grief-induced thoughtlessness, then what might happen to Jondalar? But Zelandoni couldn't worry about that too much now; she would have to plan the ceremony, not to mention attend to the gathering zelandonia.

She looked over at Joharran, who had sat up and more or less seemed to have collected himself. "Joharran," the donier said, and he looked around at her, but his expression was still dark with pain. "More visitors will be arriving and we will need to greet them. I must be going back to my dwelling to see if anyone else has arrived, but hadn't you wanted to speak to the leaders?"

"Yes," Joharran said tonelessly, but then became a bit more animated, thinking about his duties and his plans. "Yes, I wanted to speak with them about the animals. Jondalar, would you help me to explain to them? I told Proleva to get everyone together to plan a feast, and I think after the feast while everyone is still sitting around, I'll make some announcements."

"Yes, I suppose I have to," Jondalar said, but he noticed Zelandoni starting to stand, and he stood up as well. "I-"

"Jondalar, please stay with Joharran for now," the large woman said, cutting him off, and his look of pain made her frown, and she said, "I must plan and direct the zelandonia, and prepare rituals and ceremonies, and I must direct the healing of Ayla. I have a ceremony in mind, but I must prepare everything, and I need space. I'm sorry, Jondalar, but right now I need you to help in other ways. But tonight, Ayla will need your help. You may see her then."

Jondalar seemed somewhat pacified and he sat down again slowly. The donier left shortly afterward, and they all sat together quietly for a few long moments. Then there came a scratching at the door, agitated and quick, and Folara went to answer it. Outside there was a runner, out of breath, who announced without preamble, "Willamar's back!" Then the youth dashed off again, going to tell someone else about it, and Folara turned to relay the message to her assembled family.

"How are we going to tell him?" Joharran asked quietly, and no one knew how to answer.

  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
In all, only one other group showed up, the others sending runners to inquire on the issue, but the group that came was a large congregation of at least twenty people, from Elder Hearth and Horsehead Rock, who had been summoned to the Third Cave, and had travelled as a large group from there.

The Leaders Manvelar, Kimeran and Sergenor had come, bringing people from the Third, Second and Seventh caves with them, including their zelandonia. The large group had arrived, been greeted, and settled in. Due to the somewhat late start, the coming feast was slightly delayed, and when the usual time for food came and went, people started to get hungry. Proleva had anticipated this, though, and had sent a veritable army of gatherers to go out and get fresh greens that were edible with a quick washing, and by the time people were starting to complain, news of heaping bowls of fresh greens had spread, and people were gathering in the large communal area in roughly the center of the abri, near where the visitors' camps had been set up.

Surrounded by the rich smells of roasting meat and cooking stews, the gathering had the air of festivity, and those present were chatty and jovial. Jondalar, however, was as far from jovial as one could get, and for the first time he found himself wishing he could just slowly slink away from the feast and perhaps just go to bed. But he was expected to speak after the meal, and he stayed, reluctant, not wanting to talk but being forced to share pleasantries with those who had missed him.

The feast was unveiled, and the congregation ate; two hundred people plus about fifty guests makes for a big production, and the gathering area was densely packed with people sitting together, around and near cooking fires, eating from various dishes and catching up, discussing trades and bartering casually over food. It was a good meal, and Jondalar found himself satisfied by the food, but his heart would not lift, and his worries ate away at him, leaving a hollow feeling in his stomach that a meal couldn't cover.

Jondalar found himself surrounded by people he could not quite connect with, and he found he didn't quite want to. Wearing nice clothing his mother had saved for him, sitting beside Willamar who wore the same kind of shellshocked expression Marthona did beside him, Jondalar felt distinctly out of place, a jagged boulder amidst smooth river stones, and he wanted nothing more than to escape and be alone.

After the food but before people began to disperse, Joharran made his way to the top of a pile of rocks that had fallen from the abri ceiling before anyone had ever moved into the shelter. The pile of rocks functioned as a dais, raising anyone who stood on it easily high above a crowd, and when Joharran got up onto the stones, a hush came over the gathered crowd. Jondalar began to climb up onto the dais as well, and Joharran helped pull him up, and then the two looked over the assembled crowd.

Joharran cupped his hands to his mouth and began to speak, loudly and in clear tones, hoping he was able to be heard even in the back, knowing he'd have to ask people to pass his message on just in case. He said, "Thank you all for coming, especially our visitors from downstream. I appreciate you all coming on such short notice, but I have a message I must relay to all the Zelandonii who may come to this cave. You have probably heard that animals are staying nearby, animals that do not fear humans and who let humans ride on their backs. I wish to inform everyone that this is indeed true. The animals that are friends to humans wear bright red ropes tied around their faces; this is so you can tell even from a long way away that these horses are not for hunting. I must stress the importance of these horses' safety; they are friends, like children to Jondalar and his mate, and if they should be harmed, it would be a great tragedy for them, as great as it would be to lose a son."

He let the impact of his words settle on the crowd, listened to them talk among themselves for a long moment, and then he motioned Jondalar over. "Jondalar has agreed to explain more about it, in hopes of convincing you better than just my commands could," the leader said, then gestured for Jondalar to speak.

He hesitated, gathering his thoughts, and then boomed in his rich, deep voice, "No harm must come to our animal friends, including the dun horse Whinney, the bay horse Racer, and the grey canine Wolf. They are as dear to me and my mate as the children of our hearth. Though Ayla did not birth these animals, they are to her as children. If you adopted a baby, loved it as your own, would it not then be your own? It is the same way for Ayla and I. I love Racer; he is like a son of my hearth, and I feel tenderly for him. I can't imagine how I would feel if he were harmed. I ask you, please, for the sake of my heart and my mate, do not harm the horses with the red rope halters on."

Jondalar quieted then, stepping away from Joharran and climbing down off of the dais. The murmur of conversation turned into a buzz, and Joharran let their attention disperse, climbing off the dais as well.

The tall blonde man was at a loss for what to do after the feast, though. He knew he wanted to be alone, but the visitors from the other caves, and the members of his own cave that had missed him, all wanted to speak to the traveler and hear his stories. He was popular, well liked before he left, and people were eager to get into the good graces of such a high status man. He was almost okay around the crowd, but then a woman from the Seventh Cave became rather flirtatious with him, and Jondalar couldn't handle such a thing - he thought of Ayla, thought of her never being able to give him that special look full of love, and he quickly excused himself to the trenches.

When he left the latrine pits, though, he did not return to the abri, and instead went down to the meadow the horses had decided to claim. The grass there was sweet and it was often a popular spot for herds to pass though, but tonight only the two horses were there. They raised their heads when they noticed him coming, and Racer trumpeted a whinny before cantering over to the man, his neck arched proudly. Jondalar spent some time scratching and petting the horse, then pet his dam when she came near too, and before he knew it he was on the bay stallion's back, sitting quietly, keeping his balance. On horseback, he had more room to think his own thoughts, and out here no one would bother him. Out here he could be alone for a little while.

He encouraged Racer to canter a loop around the field, but after that Jondalar simply sat on the horse's back passively, and Racer allowed him to, and both drew comfort from the other. The bay stallion had communicated with his dam, and both creatures knew in their own way that the Blonde Man was saddened, and Ayla was in deep danger - but both creatures knew in their own way that they could not help, and that they must only survive for themselves and trust Ayla would survive too, the horses knowing well the way of life and death.

  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
The night wore on, and when it began to become truly dark, Jondalar left the horses and headed for the abri again. The feasting party had dispersed, and Jondalar felt better about trying to sneak into Marthona's dwelling quietly. But on his way there, someone called out to him, and he stopped, cursing inwardly.

"Yes?" he asked a little tersely, but stopped and flushed a little when he saw the Zelandoni of the Third Cave hurrying up to him. "What is it?" he asked, trying to sound a little less snippy as the older man approached, seeming a little out of breath.

"The First is looking for you," the older Zelandoni said, "for the ritual she wants to do tonight. She wants you to help her bring Ayla into Doni's Deep. Do you think you can?"

"Into a cave? But... ...well, I have to, if it's for Ayla," he said, straightening up, pulling at the end of his well-decorated leather tunic. "What must I do? Should I bring anything?"

"Warm clothes, and lots of extra furs for your mate," the zelandoni said. "If you have objects of great importance to your mate, you should bring those as well."

Jondalar thought of the doni with Ayla's face on it, and made up his mind to retrieve it from her pack, which he had not yet disturbed - the thought of messing with her stuff while she lay unconscious and uncertain of ever waking again made Jondalar feel itchy and crawly all over, but if it was to save her elan from being lost in the void, Jondalar figured he would do what he had to.

He told Zelandoni the Third to tell the First he was coming, then went inside to search Ayla's pack. Marthona had set up part of the large living space as a bedroom, going so far as to set up inner wall panels for him to give him privacy, these panels made in such a way that they didn't need to be stuck in the ground, but were weighted down with rocks and had feet for support. They were more movable, but offerred just as much privacy, and Jondalar had brought his and Ayla's packs into the small new room. A bed platform had been made up, and he carefully placed packages and objects from Ayla's pack onto the bed.

He found her rolled up bundle of sleeping furs and decided that he would have to bring them, and after sorting through a couple other things - the spear-point Wymez had given her, packages containing her clothing, the lumpy bundle she had brought with her across the continent but always evaded explaining - before coming up with the donii. It was wrapped up with one of her outfits, and he retrieved it without looking too closely at what it was packaged with. He carefully repacked Ayla's bag, then dressed himself warmly and set off for Zelandoni's lodge.


End file.
